Book Review: Natur

Book ReviewNaturBy Michael SchmidtReviewed by Adam Bell
As the last book completed by Michael Schmidt before his untimely death this spring, Natur comes to us with an elegiac aura. Sadly, Schmidt passed away right before completing Natur and winning the 2014 Pric Pictet for his previous body of work, Lebensmittel. Compiled from black and white images shot between 1987 and 1997, Natur is a somber collection of details and fragments of nature.

As the last book completed by Michael Schmidt before his
untimely death this spring, Natur
comes to us with an elegiac aura. Sadly, Schmidt passed away right before completing
Natur and winning the 2014 Pric Pictet
for his previous body of work, Lebensmittel.
Compiled from black and white images shot between 1987 and 1997, Natur is a somber collection of details
and fragments of nature. The complex and psychologically resonant images of Natur explore the act of looking and the
disorderly beauty of the natural world.

Michael Schmidt was always an uncompromising photographer
who looked hard at the history and landscape of his native Germany. While Natur lacks the historically dense and
evocative tenor of his most widely revered works like Waffenruhe (1987) or EIN-HEIT
(1996), it is no less unflinching and suggests a turn inward. Created roughly between
Schmidt’s two seminal works, the images of branches, bark, trees and one lone cow
seem more like a meditative self-portrait than Schmidt’s other works — a
respite from the harsh reality of Berlin and its tortured history.Gone are the Berlin streets and barren
lots of his native city, and instead we’re left to wander in the woods, staring
at trees and underbrush.

The book’s layout and sequencing appears somewhat simple at
first, but underlying that simplicity is a complex and layered edit.Schmidt has always been an astute
editor of his work, both in book and exhibition form. As Peter Galassi recently
wrote of EIN-HEIT, “the deliberate, poetic sequence simultaneously evokes the
painful complexities of German history after 1933 and interrogates the reader,
who is obliged to interpret the uncaptioned images and the implications that
arise from the sequence.”* Schmidt often referred to his way of arranging pictures as “1+1=3” — a nod to
montage and the complex ways in which still images, once placed together,
create a new emotional whole. Rather than relying on dramatic juxtapositions, Natur’s meticulous pacing and sequencing
has the subtle effect of drawing the viewer in while also making them acutely
aware of both the meditative act of looking through the lens and each image’s
relation to the whole. Schmidt achieves this by not only juxtaposing macro and
micro images of expansive aerial landscapes and details of tangled bark or branches,
but also through the minute variation of paired images. Throughout the book,
there are images taken moments apart, where only the angle or distance has
changed. The almost repeating images function like breaks in the book’s rhythm,
stopping us and revealing the camera and Schmidt’s editorial hand — reminding
us that each frame is a decision and variation of countless choices.

When Schmidt passed away in May, we lost one of our greatest
contemporary photographers. From his work establishing the Werkstatt für Photographie (Workshop for Photography) in 1976
to his powerful and uncompromising work spanning over thirty years, Schmidt
left an indelible mark on the medium. Fittingly entitled Natur, Schmidt does not describe a particular place, but offers an
analytic and unsentimental study of form — the chaos of nature rendered
meaningful in the frame and the cool uniformity of grey. Whether he’s moving
closer or stepping back, offering an expansive view or peering in close,
Schmidt’s inquisitive eye teases apart the natural world and its many forms, all
the while directing our eyes to the act of looking. Elegantly designed and
beautifully printed, Natur has
unexpected finality, but it’s also a reminder of Schmidt’s gifts as an artist
and what we’ve all lost in his passing.

ADAM BELLis a photographer and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. He received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts, and his work has been exhibited and published internationally. He is the co-editor and co-author, with Charles H. Traub and Steve Heller, ofThe Education of a Photographer(Allworth Press, 2006). His writing has appeared in Foam Magazine, Afterimage, Lay Flat and Ahorn Magazine. He is currently on staff and faculty at the School of Visual Arts' MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department. His website and blog areadambbell.comandadambellphoto.blogspot.com.